An Inside Look at All the Data CBP Collects About Everyone Crossing U.S. Borders
September 18th, 2019Via: Nextgov:
Customs and Border Protection collects a wealth of information through the technologies deployed at the ports of entry, all of which is stored in a master crossing record the agency keeps on every individual who enters the country.
That record contains information gathered at every crossing: the time, date and port of the crossing, the information taken from their travel documents, photos and data collected on their belongings and vehicles, and determinations made by customs officers throughout the process. For non-U.S. citizens, this also means biometric data, such as photos and fingerprints.
That record also includes data culled from a variety of federal databases and sources. But CBP doesn’t automatically share its records with other parts of the government—even other Homeland Security components. However, there are procedures and agreements in place that enable some information sharing, spreading the data beyond just CBP’s control.
Why Is the NY Fed Pumping Billions Into the Money Market?
September 18th, 2019Via: AFP:
For the first time in more than a decade, the US central bank this week stepped into financial markets to keep interest rates on short-term lending from popping above its target range.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank conducted money market interventions on Tuesday and Wednesday and planned another for Thursday morning, as a cash crunch drove up the cost of borrowing for banks that need to replenish the reserves they hold at the central bank.
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Money market rates began to jump on Monday afternoon, hitting as high as 10 percent in some cases, surprising traders.
The reasons behind borrowers’ sudden demand for cash were attributed to a host of technical conditions that converged to drain money out of the system.
There were major cash withdrawals as quarterly corporate taxes came due, at the same time as a surge of US Treasury debt came into the market to finance deficit spending by the federal government.
Last Month, 53 Americans Died in Mass Shootings While 40,000 Died from Obesity
September 18th, 2019Via: The Sun:
IN his fascinating book Unnatural Causes, forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd observes how, over the years, the dead bodies he examines have changed.
One of the most noticeable is the rapid increase in body fat.
He says: “Unless a patient is homeless or has died of cancer or is so old or poor they could not eat, few are the same shape as the dead of the 1980s when I started practising.
“Looking back at forensic photos from that era I am astonished at how thinness was then the norm.”
Fast-forward just three decades and obesity levels are now rising at such a rate that one expert says the “timebomb has exploded” for our health services.
Consequently, the NHS is reportedly bracing itself for soaring levels of cancer, Type 2 diabetes and heart and liver disease.
Kevin Spacey Accuser Dies in Midst of Sexual Assault Lawsuit
September 18th, 2019Via: The Hollywood Reporter:
An anonymous massage therapist who claims to have been sexually assaulted by Kevin Spacey has died, according to a notice filed in court by the actor’s attorneys.
The individual, suing as a “John Doe,” filed claims in September 2018 with the allegation of being forced to grab the actor’s genitals twice during a massage two years earlier at a private residence in Malibu. In May, a federal judge in California allowed the case to move forward despite Spacey’s objection that the plaintiff’s identity was being shielded.
Now, just a month after the parties came to a plan for proceeding in the suit that detailed prospective discovery and envisioned a seven- to 11-day trial, the plaintiff’s attorney has informed Spacey that the client “recently passed.”
No further detail is provided, and a request to the plaintiff’s attorney for more information has not been answered.
Health Fears Prompt Swiss 5G Revolt
September 18th, 2019Via: AFP:
Switzerland was among the first countries to begin deploying 5G, but health fears over radiation from the antennas that carry the next-generation mobile technology have sparked a nationwide revolt.
Demonstrators against the technology are due to fill the streets of Bern later this month, but already a number of cantons have been pressured to put planned constructions of 5G-compatible antennae on ice.
Facebook to Train AI Systems Using Police Video
September 17th, 2019
Via: AP:
Facebook will work with law enforcement organizations to train its artificial intelligence systems to recognize videos of violent events as part of a broader effort to crack down on extremism.
Facebook’s AI systems were unable to detect live-streamed video of a mass shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The effort will use body-cam footage of firearms training provided by U.S. and U.K. government and law enforcement agencies. The aim is to develop systems that can automatically detect first-person violent events without also flagging similar footage from movies or video games.
Canada: High Ranking RCMP Official Arrested After Vancouver Company Sold Encrypted Cellphones to International Drug Traffickers and Money Launderers
September 17th, 2019If the devices are so secure, why are we reading about this?
Hmm…
Via: CBC:
The investigation into top RCMP civilian official Cameron Ortis began with a shadowy, multimillion-dollar Vancouver-based company run by Canadians that sold encrypted cellphones to drug traffickers and money launderers around the world.
The key figures behind Phantom Secure Communications even used modified versions of Canada’s iconic Blackberry devices to help their international criminal clientele evade police.
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At the heart of the system was Canada’s iconic Blackberry.
Phantom Secure took the Blackberry phones, installed sophisticated encryption software and routed the data through encryption servers located in countries the company believed were unco-operative with law enforcement.
Police estimate that in 2018 there were at least 10,000 Phantom Secure devices in use worldwide, with users paying $4,000 a year for the service.
But not just anyone could buy these phones. Prospective customers had to be vouched for by an existing client, which prosecutors said helped restrict Phantom Secure’s customer base to those who wanted to use the device for criminal activity.
Prosecutors said Phantom Secure maintained its servers in Panama and Hong Kong, using proxy servers to further disguise the location of its servers.
The company helped drug trafficking and money laundering in Australia, Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada, concealing its proceeds through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
More: There’s Something Rotten in the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance
Research Credit: EB
Blast Sparks Fire at Russian Laboratory Housing Smallpox Virus
September 17th, 2019Via: Guardian:
A gas explosion has sparked a fire at a Russian laboratory complex stockpiling viruses ranging from smallpox to Ebola, authorities have said.
The State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology denied that the fire had exposed the public to the pathogens stored inside, some of the deadliest on Earth.
The blast took place during repairs to a fifth-floor sanitary inspection room at the facility – known as Vector – in Koltsovo, in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, the centre said on Monday. The site housed secret biological weapons research during the Soviet era and is now one of Russia’s main disease research centres.
One worker suffered third-degree burns after the blast, which blew out the glass in the building. The fire reportedly spread through the building’s ventilation system. A fire covering ??30 square metres was later extinguished.
Russian authorities insisted that the room where the explosion occurred was not holding any biohazardous substances and that no structural damage was caused. The mayor of Koltsovo said that the laboratory did not contain any disease samples because of ongoing repair work.
The smallpox virus survives in two places on Earth: at Vector and at another high-security laboratory at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Volkswagen Is Creating a New Car Operating System
September 16th, 2019Via: Ars Technica:
The cars we drive are increasingly defined as much by the software they run as their engines or chassis. It started slowly. Discrete electronic control units started to appear under the hood, controlling fuel management or anti-lock brakes. New functions required new code, run on new little black boxes, metastasizing to the point where today, a new car might have up to 70 different modules, with software from as many as 200 different vendors. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it can be. Which is why Volkswagen Group—parent company to brands like VW, Audi, and Porsche—is saying “enough!”
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In the future, a single unified automotive OS will run on everything from a VW Polo to an Audi A8.
Russia Carried Out a ‘Stunning’ Breach of FBI Communications System
September 16th, 2019Via: Yahoo News:
American officials discovered that the Russians had dramatically improved their ability to decrypt certain types of secure communications and had successfully tracked devices used by elite FBI surveillance teams. Officials also feared that the Russians may have devised other ways to monitor U.S. intelligence communications, including hacking into computers not connected to the internet. Senior FBI and CIA officials briefed congressional leaders on these issues as part of a wide-ranging examination on Capitol Hill of U.S. counterintelligence vulnerabilities.
These compromises, the full gravity of which became clear to U.S. officials in 2012, gave Russian spies in American cities including Washington, New York and San Francisco key insights into the location of undercover FBI surveillance teams, and likely the actual substance of FBI communications, according to former officials. They provided the Russians opportunities to potentially shake off FBI surveillance and communicate with sensitive human sources, check on remote recording devices and even gather intelligence on their FBI pursuers, the former officials said.
